Amherst College - Greenwich CThttps://www.amherst.edu/taxonomy/term/1495
enPlanning in Greenwichhttps://www.amherst.edu/users/B/hfbloomer56/grnwchgovt/plangrnwch/node/6506
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> The following is an Op Ed piece that appeared in two local newspapers in Greenwich, CT, during the week of May 27, 2007.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center">* * * * *</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <br>Planning in Greenwich is broken, and it needs fixing. The fix is to follow the Town’s Charter.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br><strong>Planning for the CBD </strong>The problem is most evident in connection with planning for the Central Business District (CBD). T<span>he Town’s comprehensive, long-range plan, the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD), prepared by the Planning &amp; Zoning Commission (P&amp;Z) and adopted in 1998, noted the “public criticism of…congested traffic and shortage of parking” in the CBD.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br><span>In response, the Town commissioned separate studies of traffic and parking in the CBD, both of which were completed in 2002. Both made multiple recommendations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>One of these was to create a new Parking Services Department, headed by a parking specialist. This resulted in better management of existing parking spaces. However, when the First Selectman proposed a tiered parking structure on </span><span>Benedict Place</span><span>, which was </span>called for neither <span>by the parking study nor</span> <span>the POCD, the Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) declined to appropriate construction funds and the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) voted against funding architectural and engineering work.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>While many of the recommendations in the two studies were implemented, many were not, and traffic congestion has continued to worsen. The </span><span>2006 United Way</span><span> Assessment of Needs for </span><span>Greenwich</span><span> found traffic congestion still to be “one of the community’s most frequently stated concerns”. Nonetheless, the Town’s capital planning includes no projects to address traffic circulation at any time in the next 15 years.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Meanwhile, the Board of Education indicated a desire to relocate its administrative offices from the </span><span>Havemeyer</span><span> </span><span>Building</span><span>. For its new location, the First Selectman proposed moving them into the existing </span><span>Senior</span><span> </span><span>Center</span><span> and moving the </span><span>Senior</span><span> </span><span>Center</span><span> to a new building adjacent to Town Hall. Many seniors objected. With traffic and parking still not adequately addressed, the RTM adopted a sense-of-the-meeting resolution to the effect that no appropriation for any capital project within the CBD should be made until a comprehensive plan for the CBD has been adopted.<br><br></span>Nonetheless, the First Selectman sought funds for four projects: <span>(1) architectural and engineering work in connection with relocation of the Senior Center and/or the Board of Education, (2) design of cosmetic improvements to the streetscape on Greenwich Avenue, (3) redesign of the park between the Avenue and Town Hall, in part to accommodate conversion of the Havemeyer Building to an arts center (which has yet to be approved by any branch of Town government) and (4) introduction of traffic lights on the Avenue. The BET declined to appropriate funds for the first, and the RTM turned down the remaining three.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Our Current Top-Down Process </strong>The RTM took all these actions by large majorities, indicating public dissatisfaction with the projects at issue. The projects were developed <span>top-down, without sufficient attention to public wishes or effort to build consensus. One unfortunate result was that taxpayer funds were spent planning projects that did not enjoy public support. When such projects reach the RTM, it can only disapprove them. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">For the last several years, the Town has followed a capital planning process known as the CIP process that is not contemplated by Charter. The goal is to schedule capital projects in a 15-year Capital Plan. This is a desirable goal, but identifying the projects to be scheduled, and prioritizing them, is largely controlled by the First Selectman and Town officials who report to him. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Projects are prioritized on the basis of a set of objective criteria that militate against smaller projects that require year-to-year funding to achieve a goal (such as traffic-calming) in favor of urgent needs (such as leaky roofs) and major projects (such as the Public Safety building). No weight is given to whether or not a project is contemplated by the POCD. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The process whereby these criteria are applied is not open. The committee of Town officials that established priorities for the 2007-08 Budget met only twice and kept no record of how individual members ranked different projects. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span>The Charter’s Bottom-Up Process<span> </span></span></strong><span>By contrast, t</span>he Charter makes P&amp;Z the<span> branch of Town government responsible for planning. It requires P&amp;Z to prepare the POCD and, t</span><span>o ensure that it reflects the wishes of the public, that it be approved by the RTM.</span><span> Thus the Charter</span> contemplates a bottom-up process, by which planning proceeds from the public’s vision of the goals to be achieved<span>. This approach is consistent with the best practice in municipal planning in </span><span>America</span><span>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Considerable public input went into preparation of the 1998 POCD. It was prepared using data from informal meetings between P&amp;Z members and staff with Town leaders to identify issues, public hearings in five areas of town on concerns, issues and trends in these neighborhoods, and separate public hearings on major topics. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>While it reflected public opinion, the POCD in the past was prepared mainly to serve as a guide for decisions P&amp;Z makes on zoning regulations, subdivision regulations and municipal improvements. As a result, many of its recommendations were broadly stated and did not describe the capital projects that would be required to implement them. </span><span>However, the Charter calls for the POCD to be a comprehensive, detailed document and specifically to address infrastructure needs. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span> </span>A resolution adopted by the RTM in October 2006 called for a more detailed POCD and for its periodic updating so that it remains current during the 10 years before a new one is prepared. A special committee of the RTM is currently examining how best to link the POCD with the Town’s capital planning. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>P&amp;Z’s new chairman has announced that he intends to devote more time and attention to planning. To do this, P&amp;Z will need greater resources, either in the form of additional staff dedicated to planning or funding for outside consultants, or both. In particular, a transportation planner should be added (as recommended in the 2002 traffic study). </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>P&amp;Z is tooling up to prepare a new POCD, which</span> is <span>due next year. To ensure that it is based on an appropriate amount of public input, has the requisite detail and scope (including a comprehensive plan for the CBD) and is completed on time, additional help from consultants may be needed. This would be a good use of the money intended for the CBD projects disapproved by the RTM.</span></p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1492">Representative Town Meeting</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1495">Greenwich CT</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1505">Franklin Bloomer</a></div></div></div>Sun, 27 May 2007 01:13:35 +0000hfbloomer566506 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/users/B/hfbloomer56/grnwchgovt/plangrnwch/node/6506#commentsEaster Island: A Metaphor?https://www.amherst.edu/users/B/hfbloomer56/easterisland/node/5691
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <div> <p class="MsoNormal">The following article was published in edited form as an Op-Ed piece in Greenwich Time, a newspaper serving Greenwich, CT. </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center">* * * * * </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Easter Island, which lies 2300 miles west of Chile, is the most remote habitable land in the world. It is a small island, with an area about a third larger than Greenwich, and is best known for its giant stone statues. It was colonized about 1100 years ago as part of the Polynesian settlement of the islands of the South Pacific. At that time, the island had a diverse forest with trees up to 100’ in height and was probably the richest bird breeding site in all of Polynesia. The colonists were farmers and brought with them sweet potatoes, taro, bananas, sugarcane and chickens. They also brought rats.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span> The Easter Islanders developed a hierarchical society of chiefs, priests and commoners organized around approximately 12 clans, each holding its own territory. The clans competed with each other to build statues, which had religious significance, and ceremonial platforms to support them. As the population increased and sources of wild food declined due to over-exploitation and predation by rats, agriculture moved inland from the lowlands near the coast. The island’s forests were progressively cut down not only to clear land for crops but also for use as fuel and in moving and erecting statues. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span> The deforestation resulted in massive soil erosion by wind and rain and soil degradation due to desiccation and nutrient leaching. Agricultural productivity declined. Many wild fruits were no longer available. Large seaworthy canoes could no longer be built which limited fishing to species that could be caught close to shore. The habitat of bird species that had formerly been hunted was gone. The loss of food sources led to civil war and ultimately to starvation, a population crash and cannibalism. Easter Island’s was a society that destroyed the natural environment on which it depended, with the result that the society itself collapsed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In his recent book <em>Collapse </em>(New York: Viking, 2005), Jared Diamond suggests that Easter Island may be a metaphor, a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead for the world as a whole in an age of globalization. Earth is isolated in space just as Easter Island was isolated in its remote corner of the South Pacific. And like the Easter Islanders, we are destroying the natural environment on which we depend. There is debate on the rate at which that destruction is proceeding, but there is no disagreement that the destruction is occurring, that directly or indirectly we are causing it and that it is not sustainable.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Easter Island is an extreme example of deforestation, but more than half of the world’s original forestlands have been converted to other uses. An even larger fraction of the world’s original wetlands have been destroyed, damaged or converted. The destruction of habitats has been exacerbated by the spread of non-native species and the over-exploitation of wild foods, particularly fish. One result has been the loss of biodiversity, not just the extinction of many species but the loss of genetic diversity. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We are using up our environmental capital in other ways ─ fossil fuels, of course, but also soil (worldwide, soil erosion is occurring at rates many times the rate of soil formation), water (throughout the world, underground aquifers are being depleted faster than they are being replenished) and photosynthetic capacity (<em>i.e., </em>the capacity of plant photosynthesis to fix solar energy, which is declining). Moreover, we are degrading air, soil and water by the use or release of pollutants, including toxic chemicals such as insecticides, pesticides and herbicides, oxides emitted from burning fossil fuels which cause acid rain and a wider range of so-called “greenhouse gases” emitted from burning fossil fuels, waste management (<em>e.g., </em>landfills) and agriculture which contribute to global warming. Meanwhile, the world’s human population continues to grow. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">How the world deals with this environmental time bomb, as it must, will ultimately depend on the efforts of all of its constituent parts. Are we doing our share?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unlike Easter Island, which is dry and windy, Greenwich is blessed by abundant rainfall and a climate both favorable to plant growth and having the capability to buffer or absorb many pollutants. We have a wealthy, sophisticated populace, well educated and knowledgeable on environmental problems. But our lifestyle both masks the environmental problems we face and contributes to them. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the best known and most serious environmental problem facing us is invisible. Greenwich is a “severe non-attainment area” under federal air quality standards. While much of the bad air we breathe is produced upwind of us (in New York, New Jersey and points west), emissions from motor vehicles operated to, from and within Greenwich are a major factor. Connecticut is particularly dependent on the single-occupant automobile and trucks, and we travel long distances to work, shop and recreate, despite apparently incurable traffic congestion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Like all urban areas, Greenwich contributes to the planet’s loss of photosynthetic capacity both by development that creates impervious surfaces (buildings, roads, parking lots, swimming pools, even artificial turf), where nothing grows, and by conversion of woodlands to grasslands at golf courses, parks and playing fields, around homes and along roads. Impervious surfaces also impede the recharge of ground water, which contributes to the town’s streams and lakes and thus to aquatic life and the town’s water supply. We use 50% per capita more water than the state average, much of it for lawn watering.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Greenwich exports many of the environmental consequences of its lifestyle. For example, each of us generates about a ton of trash annually. Formerly our trash was dumped at what was known as the Town Dump. Now it is delivered to the same site, somewhat misleadingly renamed the Holly Hill Resource Recovery Station, from whence it is moved out of Greenwich (even biodegradable waste). Some of it is recycled, but much of it is incinerated and/or finds itself in landfills. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The environmental consequences of the production of much that we consume also occur outside of Greenwich. The lumber that is going into the houses under construction around town does not come from trees felled in Greenwich, and few of the environmental problems associated with the logging industry occur here. Nor do many of the environmental problems of the energy industry. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The number of residents of Greenwich has been relatively stable for the last 35 years (at around 60,000), but we nonetheless contribute to the continuing growth of the world’s human population ─ and its consequences. Far fewer people who work in Greenwich live here than formerly, because they can’t afford to. Many live in new developments in lower Fairfield County that have replaced forest and farmland and created the worst sprawl in the Northeast. But our non-resident workforce increases the number of people who are here during the workday, commuting mostly by single-occupant automobile and thereby contributing to our highway congestion and poor air quality.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Many of those who work here are illegal immigrants, seeking to escape conditions (including environmental problems) in their homelands. None of us would deny the aspiration of these people to the higher living standards we enjoy. But the impact on the world’s environment ─ in resources consumed and waste generated ─ if the inhabitants of and émigrés from the Third World achieved a lifestyle like ours would far exceed the impact simply of continued growth of the world’s population, which is disproportionately in the Third World.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">To judge from the market acceptance of organic foods (produced without pesticides) and fuel-efficient hybrid automobiles, many of us are prepared to pay more for products that minimize our impact on the natural environment. But to judge from the market acceptance of gas-guzzling SUVs and oversized homes that require more energy and water and create more impervious surfaces, many of us are not. In Greenwich, the balance seems decidedly in favor of consumption of resources. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p><span>Those of us who make choices favorable to preservation of the natural environment individually can have only a small impact. But they may be worthwhile, if we and enough others want to pass on to our children and grandchildren something like the lifestyle we have enjoyed. That is something the Easter Islanders failed to do ─ including their chiefs.</span></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1483">Easter Island</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1484">environment</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1495">Greenwich CT</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1505">Franklin Bloomer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1565">Jared Diamond</a></div></div></div>Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:08:26 +0000hfbloomer565691 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/users/B/hfbloomer56/easterisland/node/5691#commentsGreenwich Town Governmenthttps://www.amherst.edu/users/B/hfbloomer56/grnwchgovt/node/5682
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style="text-align:center;" class="MsoNormal" align="center"><b> </b></p><p>The subpages to this page consist of writings I have prepared in connection with issues relating to the town government of Greenwich, CT.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1495">Greenwich CT</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1505">Franklin Bloomer</a></div></div></div>Fri, 27 Apr 2007 20:49:01 +0000hfbloomer565682 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/users/B/hfbloomer56/grnwchgovt/node/5682#comments